Forest Shuffle Review

Nature, It’s All Over Me!

There seem to be a large number of recent board games with a nature or animal theme that have been released over the past couple of years with some excellent options out there, Earth for example being one of my favourite games from last year. Forest Shuffle is a 2 to 5 player game that plays in an hour, and I think that is actually on the generous side with games I’ve had often lasting around 45 minutes, although I haven’t yet played at 5 which may run longer. The game is designed by Kosch and published by Lookout Games and features absolutely gorgeous art by Toni Llobet. So how does Forest Shuffle stand up amongst the other nature and animal themed games and does it do enough differently to warrant your attention?

Every Day I’m Shuffling

Forest Shuffle is a card game, with a board to act as an area to draw and discard cards from, and in it you will play cards to your play area hoping to gain the most points when the game ends, which happens immediately when the third winter card is drawn. Set up is really quick, put together a deck with a number of cards based on the player count and roughly separate the cards into 3 piles. In the third pile, you place 1 winter card on top, and shuffle the other 2 into the pile before putting all three piles together with the third pile with the winter cards on the bottom. Deal 6 starting cards to each player and you’re good to go!

On your turn in Forest Shuffle, you can take one of two actions, either draw 2 cards or play cards into your forest. Almost all cards cost cards to play, which are discarded into the clearing, which is the shared board that you or other players can draw from. The first type of card you want to play are trees, and there are 8 different varieties in the game, and then you can play different animals, insects, funghi or fauna around each tree. Each tree is different, offering different ways to score, and helping to form your initial approach to the opening turns. Every time you play a tree, new cards are added to the clearing, and along with other cards discarded here you have plenty of options when it comes to choosing what to pick up. However, if at the end of a player's turn there are 10 or more cards in the clearing, these are all discarded. Don’t ask me how this works thematically but it does help to clear the space.

After you’ve placed a tree, you can begin populating it. One of the unique things about this game is the cards are split, top and bottom or left and right, with one habitant of the tree on each half of the card, allowing you for example to play a fox to the right of the tree, or a hare to the left. Each opens up different paths to scoring and there are so many different scoring options in the game and this is Forest Shuffle's greatest strength. Some cards will have specific actions that will trigger if you play a corresponding card of a matching colour as part of the cost, and most cards will offer a small bonus upon playing like drawing new cards or being able to play additional cards from your hand.

I’ve played this multiple times and each time I’ve wanted to take a new approach to see if it works, maybe I’ll try and collect as many butterflies as possible, or get one of each tree. As with many games, there are probably some strategies that are consistently more successful than others but it’s fun to play around with the different options.

Winter Is Coming

Knowing when to switch up your strategy and pivot is key to the end game, when the winter cards start coming into play it's really important to learn to prioritise how to get cards out quickly or risk the game suddenly ending with your high scoring cards still in hand and this brings a sudden layer of tension to what is otherwise quite a serene experience. I’ve found in early plays of the game, we all perhaps rushed the deck too quickly bringing a swift end to the game, with low scores and frustration but as we learned to manipulate the card row and draw more from there the scores and length of the game increased but never to the point where it felt like it was dragging out too long.

Once the game ends, scoring is probably the most complex part of the game, with multiple checks on your different combos and types of cards needed. Rather than a player reference aid, or a reference within the rulebook there is a handy set of cards with an A-Z of the different cards that can be played if you do need any clarifications on what scores what or how. This would be my only real gripe with the game, although it does get easier the more you play, however the first couple of games might cause a few head scratches to what is otherwise a relatively straightforward game.

So returning to my first point, how does Forest Shuffle compare to the whole host of other nature games out there and is it worth adding to your collection. Well it’s been an absolute hit in our house, hitting the table three nights running when it first arrived and I can’t think of another game that has ever done that for our household. It is quick to set up and play, it has gorgeous art and multiple ways to score and seek victory. It has a calmness to it while being played where you almost always feel as if you have some options open to you. The shorter play time means it has been easy to get to the table and the theme is delightful, only slightly hampered by a slightly convoluted scoring system and depending on the size of your forest, it can take up quite a bit of space on the table.